the markets are looking for some direction after fiscal cliff negotiations stall. we get the word from the nyse floor, next on what you should be watching in today's session. later on, the anti-tax man himself is here to tell us about how he feels about the latest developments in the fiscal cliff negotiations. what a wild ride here we've seen all morning long. right now the dow up about 25. >>> welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm john harwood in washington. i want to bring you up to date on the latest of the talks between vice president biden and mitch mcconnell. there's some concern among democrats who have heard that the income threshold for tax rate increases may be going up to 400, 450, $500,000. a source familiar with the talks just phoned me to say the democrats are only considering that under a couple of conditions. one is that if the threshold goes up to that level, the top income tax rate would go all the way back up to the clinton era rate of 39.6%. not some mid point of 37% talked about a couple of weeks ago. secondly, that it would be accompanie